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Re: Where is Warren's Post was: Choosing the right laptop for live looping & PRICING EXPERIMENT



Here you go, far below.

----- Original Message ----- 

> Twice,  a reply in this thread has referred to a posting by Warren 
>Sirota 
> about the Macbook and the Macbook Pro.
>
> I have not gotten it in any of my digests and when I just went to the 
> archive, is it not listed in this thread.
>
> Can someone direct me to his post please?
>
> yours,  Rick


Qua,

With all due respect:

I use a MacBook (non-pro, 2GHz, 2G ram) running XP for all my work, but I
use Boot Camp, not Parallels. Boot Camp, not Parallels, would be the
recommended configuration for anyone wishing to do music production under 
XP
on a Mac, and I believe that the computer would be very well-suited for 
that
mode of use. (that said, what I actually do is to boot into OSX for all my
music, and keep all my work on the - sorry, PC fan-people - far less stable
PC side). I understand the hassles about using Parallels in a corporate
environment, with dual logins, but that's probably an unusual situation for
people's music computers.

I'd love to use Parallels (or the new VMWare Fusion) on the Mac for my
Windows development work, but I need to develop under VMware Workstation
because of the essential snapshot feature, and that only works under Boot
Camp. When VMware release Workstation for OSX, I'll be one of the first
customers.

Running XP with Boot Camp is almost exactly like running XP on any computer
built for XP (I've used quite a few of those). XP isn't running under an
emulator in this configuration; instead, the computer just boots natively
into the XP partition. The *only* difference that I've found so far, after 
6
months of intensive use, is that XP backup software can't back up the whole
disk partition as it can do on a non-partitioned disk - instead I have to
run an "all files" backup, which is not quite as good.

As far as cost goes: this is probably no longer true, but when I priced out
Acer and Dell laptops vs. MacBooks back in January, I was surprised to see
that the prices were quite comparable for comparable configurations. And,
when you get a MacBook, you get a computer (at least on the OSX side) where
all the hardware and software is integrated from the ground up, and there
are no nasty surprises with the way the Firewire or USB functions, as there
were on my last Dell Inspiron, making the "multimedia computer" completely
unsuitable for multitrack recording (for which I will never forgive Dell),
nor the overheating and spontaneous system shutdown that the piece-of-shit
Dell was subject to when you filled the memory out to capacity.

And with the Macbook, you get various bonuses that are just part of the way
Apple engineers hardware. I've dropped it onto asphalt from 3 feet with 
only
a scratch. The power cord easily just pulls out from the computer if you
trip over it (OK, so I'm a klutz). You can use two fingers on the trackpad
to scroll any window - in either OSX or XP - instead using the scroll bars
onscreen. It also goes into Standby and Hibernate well, something that is
frequently a problem with Windows computers.

I am *so* glad I got this computer - I can do my work, and my music system
is insulated from the vagaries of Windows, which (sorry again, Windows
fan-people) seems to trash my audio setup and various other things at 
random
intervals for no discernable reason. Plus, if you get a new Windows 
computer
today, you're likely to be stuck with Vista, which, like every new 
Microsoft
OS, seems designed to soak up more and more CPU power with features I don't
give a crap about. Plus, the MacBook is really light and doesn't seem to
need it's fan very much, so it's pretty quiet.

BTW, I've been making my living from programming under Windows since 
Windows
3.1 in 1993, but that doesn't mean I don't notice its flaws (au contraire, 
I
am subjected to them constantly). I don't think the Mac OS is inherently
superior in features or even UI, and most of the newer features in either 
OS
strike me as marketing fluff that only serves to waste computer power and
drive corporate profits. The early hype that Macs don't crash was nonsense
(though it's more true now), and most of the stuff in those Mac-vs-PC
commercials is distortion, if not outright lies. Nonetheless, I find Macs
(on the OSX side) to be significantly superior and more stable for music,
presumably because of the tight control of the hw platform by Apple and the
less-frequent OS security updates. Didn't Jobs recently quote Alan Kay as
saying "if you want to make great sw, you have to control the hw," or
something like that?

Sorry, I usually hate PC-vs-Mac flame stuff, but I had to cast my vote in
this discussion in support of MacBooks. Mine is the best Windows computer
I've ever had.

Warren